This #FOIAFriday, we’re talking about taxpayer spending at properties owned by former president Donald Trump. Here’s some highlights of what we’ve uncovered using FOIA and state open records laws so far.
Last December, @MartynMcL of the @TheScotsman reported on records we obtained regarding 4 trips made by Eric Trump. Turnberry — a Trump resort in Scotland — charged U.S. taxpayers $32,742 for the accompanying Secret Service members’ hotel costs.
We uncovered that billionaire and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.K. Woody Johnson paid £1,143 (about $1,500) for a single day of activities at Trump’s golf course in Scotland in July 2018.
scotsman.com/news/politics/…
DOJ officials spent over $5,700 at Trump’s Doral & Soho properties in 2018.
documentcloud.org/documents/7214…
DHS employees spent more than $5,500 at Trump properties, including a ~$1,600 dinner between DHS official Miles Taylor and foreign government representatives at the Trump International Hotel.
Our FOIAs further uncovered more than $2,500 in spending at Trump properties by officials at the VA and two expenditures involving Department of Labor officials totaling more than $600 — one of which was from the agency’s Office of the Inspector General.
We also obtained documentation of former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin’s January 2018 stay at Trump’s DC hotel, which cost nearly $700 but according to the records was later reimbursed to the state by the Kentucky Republican Party.
And we obtained documents that shed light on the State Department’s approval of Trump World Tower leases to representatives of foreign governments from early 2017 through the summer of 2019.
americanoversight.org/document/state…
There’s more. We recently obtained documents that show that Kelly Craft, Trump’s ambassador to Canada, directed government business to the Trump International Hotel while in office.
“Is this a meeting I should attend?” Craft wrote in one email to a staffer. “If so, I would prefer the TRUMP HOTEL.”
americanoversight.org/document/state…
In another instance, Craft helped line the former president’s pockets by using his Washington, D.C., hotel for a September 2018 meeting with Canadian officials.
This is just a fraction of what taxpayers have shelled out at Trump businesses. Learn more about our investigations into taxpayer spending at Trump’s properties with the link below and stay tuned for more records we uncover:
americanoversight.org/tracking-taxpa…
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